Friday, 28 May 2010

Kestrel (don't call her Susan) Murphy is angry. Forced to leave her posh San Francisco Bay Area home by her father's illness, she's living in Jurupa (sounds like vomiting), Southern California. It's too hot. The people are stupid. And you have to chew the air to get the oxygen out of it. On the plus side, Kestrel is a witch. Well, a witch-in-training. And she's going acquire the magic she needs to get her life back to normal. At first, she barely notices the people around her-Aunt Ariel, who's taken her in and is herself a well-known white witch; Jose Iturrigaray, the quiet, talented young artist; Blake Cump, troublemaker extraordinaire; Laura Greenwood, who wants to be Kestrel's friend. But life has its own magic, and gradually Kestrel finds that much of one's success as a witch lies in being open to it. (Goodreads)

Majix is a fun book aimed at younger readers (middle grade). The characters are appealing and it is written in a fun way, in the style of Kestrel writing a book about becoming a witch. The story is much more about a young girl dealing with certain issues than actual magic. With an ill father and moving to live with her aunt which means a change of school, Kestrel only has her witchcraft to get her through. Determined not to fit in, Kestrel ends up with a couple of new friends and actually starts to like living in Juropa.

Monday, 24 May 2010

It's Monday! What are you reading? is a weekly event to celebrate what we are reading for the week hosted at Book Journey. Post the books completed last week, the books you're currently reading, and the books to be read this week.Please comment or leave a link to let me know what you're reading this week!

Completed last week
A bit of a slow week for some reason, don't even know why though lol

Saturday, 22 May 2010

The good news: Zoey’s friends have her back again and Stevie Rae and the red fledglings aren’t Neferet’s secrets any longer. The bad news: Ancient evil with the face of an angel has been let loose – that and various other nasties (whose faces aren’t so angelic). Grandma Redbird is in trouble. Heath is in trouble. The House of Night is in trouble. Okay, let’s face it – Zoey’s whole world is in trouble! But when the trouble comes from a being who appears to be beauty personified, will the world believe it? Especially when only a teenager and a group of misfits are the only ones who really understand the danger he brings. Will Zoey have the strength and wisdom to reveal the truth? Especially when, in the House of Night, the truth is often hard to come by… (Goodreads)

I've been putting off writing this review for a few weeks, mostly because I'm so conflicted with the House of Night series at the moment. There's parts that really annoy me, yet for some reason I want to know what happens. I know a lot of people really like these books so there must be something good but, I don't know, I just find myself frustrated when I'm reading them. My main dislikes of the series is that I don't particularly like the characters with the exception of Aphrodite and I'm totally not with the vamp lore - they're just not very vampirey to me. The thing that's kept me reading though was the plot being interesting enough to make me want to read more ...

Until we get to Hunted. I was actually bored while reading this book and ended up skimming parts of it, just to get the main points of what was happening - which to be honest, didn't seem like a lot most of the time. I've found with the House of Night books, it doesn't really matter if you miss a vital plot point anyway because it's bound to be repeated at least four times when the characters tell each other what has just happened. It's only about three or four weeks since I read this book and I can't really remember what happened. There was bits of action, sure, and more Zoey doesn't know which boyfriend she wants (sooo annoying), the rest of her friends being a bit blah ... but in terms of moving the whole plot forward, nothing major seemed to have happened.

I was going to take a break from the series and come back to it later, but then I saw Tempted in at the library and figured I might as well get it to save me having to order it another time. So yes, despite everything, I'm still going to read the other books because I want to know what happens, lol.

Friday, 21 May 2010

Katsa has a special skill; a Grace. Like the others Graced, she is both feared and exploited. Katsa's is especially intimidating as she has the Grace of Killing.

Ruled by her uncle, King Randa of the Middluns, Katsa is sent out to do his bidding - threatening, intimidating and killing anyone who he dislikes or does him wrong. She is determined to use her skills for some use though and along with her cousin, Raffin, Katsa has organised a Council of people who work secretly to help those in need. One of these tasks is to rescue the King of Lienad's father who has been kidnapped. She also needs to work out who kidnapped him and why. Katsa would also like to find out the identity of the Graced fighter she meets.

Graceling is an exceptionally written, exciting fantasy adventure story. There are great characters and beautifully described places. It's a world of Kings, princesses and heroes where the Graced can be identified by their different colour eyes - something that doesn't help Katsa in keeping a low profile. It's a world of seven kingdoms, two of which are physically from the others; one by sea and one by unforgiving mountains. Katsa must travel to both of these to find out the truth and aid the survival of a young princess.

The protagonist of the story is Katsa. She's gutsy and determined, a little bit anti-social yet at the same time more vulnerable than even she realises. She's caught between the roles of being a lady at court and being a fighter. She wants to be neither. Part of the story is Katsa struggling to find her true self. The other character I really liked in this book was Princess Bitterblue. It's not very often a ten-year-old princess is strong and sharp but she still has her weaknesses. It's more that she's been brought up to be a ruler but the author doesn't forget she's still a little girl.

A definite recommended read, especially for fans of fantasy adventure. I'm not sure if this book falls into the Young Adult or Adult genre though. Parts of it, namely that the characters seemed fairly young made me think it would be YA but other parts seemed more geared towards adult readers. As far as I recall there's nothing actually graphic but there's some mentions of things that might not be for younger readers (trying not to give away too much here lol). So yes, older teens and above.

Tuesday, 18 May 2010

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read

* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page (feel free to add more)
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others.
* Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

It was like an icy hand plunged into my body, ripping my heart from my chest. I felt actual physical pain lance through me. My legs buckled, and I collapsed to the snow, ice crystals biting into my plams. I couldn't breathe, couldn't even cry. All I could do was kneel there, the cold seeping through my jeans, hearing Ash's words echo through my head.

Most of the guards gave her no trouble. If she could sneak up on them, or if they were crowded in small groups, they never knew what hit them. The castle guard was a bit more complicated, because five guards defended his office. She swirled through the lot of them, kicking and kneeing and hitting, and the castle guard jumped up from his guard house desk, burst through the door and ran into the fray.

Adrift in the impersonal, iron-gray society of the superstate, the novel's main character, 15-year-old Alex, leads his gang of teenage rockers in all night orgies of random violence and destruction. This is Alex's story- of rapes and stompings and rumbles with the police, of prison life and the frightful "Ludovico Technique" by which Alex is "reconditioned" into a model citizen, and of his subsequent adventures as a mindless pawn in the cynical hands of the authorities.

Fifteen-year-old Alex and his 'droogs' like violence. They like drugs. Alex also likes Beethoven. The story follows Alex on a crime spree that eventually finds him at the mercy of the state and in the hands of Dr Brodsky, a psychologist. Alex is to learn that ultra-violence is anything but fun.

A Clockwork Orange is set in a near-future dystopian society and it is narrated by Alex in 'nadsat', a slang used by the teens of the day. Nadsat incorporates elements of Russian and Cockney English. It provides a demanding read but makes the story so much more intense. It's disorientating at times, particularly when Alex is excited by something. This adds to the effect when reading the somewhat disturbing descriptions of the violent crimes the gang commit. I did find that once I'd gotten into the book, it was much easier to read and generally the slang terms could be worked out by the context. A few chapters in, I wasn't even really having to think about the previously unfamiliar words. Throughout the book I couldn't help relate Burgess' projected future (which I believe he had as the early 1970s) with current times. Although obviously not the same slang, it did remind me somewhat of listening to certain teens of today - being able to understand the general point but not necessarily the individual words.

I actually listened to the audio of this book along side reading the text version, mostly listening to a section and then reading it. This really helped with getting used to the language. The version I have is read by Phil Daniels who I felt was perfect for it in terms of voice and accent - factors I believe can make or break an audio book. The pace of the book was read at an immensely fast pace, as I'd expect a character such as Alex to speak if he were retelling the story aloud. I found that the audio gave me a more general sense of the story and the characters while reading the text allowed me to pick up the small details.

Alex's character was intriguing. We experience the story through Alex, his thoughts and feelings are all there on the page. While in no way a likeable character in terms of the acts he commits and his views on the world, Alex still draws in the reader. Throughout the book I couldn't help but hope that things would turn out right for him in the end, that he would turn things around.

It's Monday! What are you reading? is a weekly event to celebrate what we are reading for the week hosted at Book Journey. Post the books completed last week, the books you're currently reading, and the books to be read this week.Please comment or leave a link to let me know what you're reading this week!

And obviously I had to have a browse round and picked up a few more. I had been planning on having a short break from the House of Night series but as the next one I hadn't read was there on the shelf I grabbed it anyway!